Two late reviews arriving at platform 2…

Phew! An excuse to interrupt David before he puts up any more train photos! Yes folks, we received word this week of two somewhat late but extremely welcome reviews of two of last year’s books: David Rix’s ‘Feather’ and Jet McDonald’s ‘Automatic Safe Dog’. Adam Groves of The Fright Site has expressed great enthusiasm for some of our previous titles and it seems that these two latest have fully lived up to his expectations of unexpectedness (if you know what I mean). Of ‘Feather’, Adam writes:

“FEATHER is a true oddity that exists somewhere in the arena of J.G. Ballard and Ian Sinclair, yet will never be mistaken for anything other than itself. I should add that the amazing wraparound cover art, created by the book’s author David Rix, deserves some kind of award for evocative book design. Depicting a woman’s face half buried in sand, said cover art perfectly captures the air of wistful surrealism that pervades the text…
…What exactly are we to make of this bizarre text? A fictional commentary on the nature of artistic inspiration, perhaps? A surreal autobiography? Avant-garde science fiction? None of the above? Whatever FEATHER may be, it’s as wonderfully strange and evocative as nearly anything I’ve read, and one of the standout publications of 2011.”

Of Jet McDonald’s ‘Automatic Safe Dog’, Adam writes:

“In the category of surreal satire this crazed fantasy is a standout… Jet McDonald’s satire is quite pertinent in its exploration of corporate psychopathology, artistic pretension and the power of love. Furthermore, McDonald’s deranged imagination is a wonder to behold, always topping itself in madcap invention.

Things grow quite dark in the book’s latter pages. Here Telby, having been (voluntarily) bitten by a rabid dog, embarks on a rabies induced fighting and f**king spree throughout the city. Following this he gets one of his testicles surgically removed (as a show of enforced loyalty to the corporation) and replaced with that of a dog. Then there are the violent animal liberationists who come to have an increasing presence on the narrative, and the horrific fate of Ibore, who’s transformed into a “kind-of-woman” complete with a disembodied vagina.

Obviously this isn’t your grandmother’s corporate satire. The novel will surely upset just as many readers as it enchants, yet in today’s economy-devouring corporate culture I believe Jet McDonald’s raunchy, surreal and altogether outrageous brand of absurdity is exactly what we need.”

Thank you Adam, good to know that Eibonvale books are working their magic over the pond in America long after they’ve shuffled out of port here.

More Railway Architecture

Ok, I will admit this is rather a personal obsession at the moment – but hey, it’s relevant isn’t it?!  I hope people are enthusiastically writing something for the Eibonvale anthology Rustblind and Silverbright – a collection of stories focussing on the railway – and it never does any harm to keep waffling on about . . . *ahem* to provide a little extra inspiration and focus!  Here’s just a few more photos from my collection to keep the railway glow alive!

London Railways

Shoreditch Station

Wapping Station

Wimbledon Station

Pontoon Dock

London Bridge

Riding the Train in Central London

Near London Bridge

Near London Bridge

Across the Thames into Canon Street

In the Wilderness

And one about as far (in concept) as you can get from London. Berney Arms station somewhere in the middle of the Norfolk Broads. You have to request to stop there and it is so small that the train can only open one door – which the conductor had to manually override and open for me. There is no road there and the land is perfectly flat as far as the eye can see in all directions under a perfect hemisphere of sky . . .

All photographs by David Rix

Some New Titles Coming Soon from Eibonvale Press

In spite of the on-going project to illustrate Tallest Stories, which has almost brought the press to a stand-still, there have been some new projects trickling in – waiting for me to turn my attention to them at that great moment when Tallest Stories is finally unleashed upon the world.  Some of these projects could be quite quick and some are already underway in the preliminary stages.  However, I trust that the big old echoing world out there will forgive me for keeping Tallest Stories as my priority for the moment!

Defeated Dogs – Quentin Crisp

I have wanted to publish something by Quentin ever since the press first launched.  We were both in the first Strange Tales anthology from Tartarus Press in 2001 and I remember his Cousin X vividly as one of the best stories in the book.  Here we present a retrospective collection and the stories presented here range from elegant philosophical improvisations to superbly crafted classic horror.

Miss Homicide Plays the Flute – Brendan Connell

Unpleasant Tales was one of our most popular titles, so we are very pleased to be working on a new short novel from the same author.  This is a bizarre and elegant mix of crime novel and the author’s signature razor-sharp modernist classicism (if that makes any sense?).  If everything goes according to plan, this will be Eibonvale’s first ever high-quality limited edition.

The Planet Suite – Allen Ashley

Allen is a British author with an eye for sharp and almost satirical literary sci-fi and a real ability to capture both the crazy old world of Britain and the simple humanity that is universal.  We have worked with him before as both an author (Once and Future Cities) and editor (Where Are We Going?), and now we will be producing a new expanded edition (and first hardcover edition) of his first novel.  Filled with the lively energy that often accompanies first novels, this is an extraordinary literary improvisation on the themes of science fiction, the human condition – and Holst’s most famous composition.

An Emporium of Automata – D. P. Watt

This is another reprint – a lightly expanded edition of the now OOP collection originally published by Ex Occidente Press.  These are weird tales with a massive dash of the historical – and the result has a nice blend of a historian’s eye for detail and a masterful sense of passion and phantasmagoria.

Songs for the Lost – Alexander Zelenyj

Experiments at 3 Billion A.M. is one of my personal favourite books in the Eibonvale catalogue.  Alex Zelenyj writes with a haunting and haunted style that is simultaneously deeply rooted in classic horror / SF themes and also moving beyond them into something touching and literary, with an emotion and humanity that both genres all-too-often fail to reach.  Songs for the Lost will be a new collection of stories, slimmer and more concise than the massive Experiments, all revolving around the wispy concept of music.